The University of Texas at Dallas plans to put students arrested during campus anti-Israel protests on deferred suspension, denying their degrees until December.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the campus held disciplinary hearings throughout July for students who were arrested. As part of the student’s bond conditions, the arrestees were banned from campus outside of class and work-related activities.
Throughout the investigations, UT Dallas was determining whether the arrested students violated school rules by engaging in disruptive conduct, blocking access to university facilities, or failing to follow instructions of university officials.
Students at UT Dallas told KERA News that the university will be putting those who were arrested on deferred suspension, meaning that suspension from campus is postponed but will take effect if a student is found responsible for any additional rule violations during the deferred suspension period.
According to Nouran Abusaad, a UT Dallas student who was arrested during anti-Israel campus protests, the university gave students under trial three options: accept responsibility and punishment, accept responsibility but appeal the punishment, or dispute both, Abusaad told KERA. If students were to appeal both the responsibility and punishment, they would partake in the hearing.
In late April, UT Dallas students staged a sit-in inside the campus administrative building to demand that the school divest itself from any companies that produce weaponry being used against the people of Gaza, as reported by The Dallas Express. No arrests were reported in that incident.
However, protests on campus ramped up going into May as groups of UT Dallas students set up encampments on the campus plaza, leading to the arrest of 21 agitators. Nine students and three professors were among those charged with criminal trespass at the May 1 protest, per KERA.
Schools across the nation witnessed thousands of arrests of students during on-campus encampments and protests over the ongoing Israel and Hamas war in Gaza.